1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a program, an image data processing method, and an image data processing apparatus. More particularly, the present invention relates to technology for taking acquired image data and appending thereto position information that indicates the location where the image data was acquired.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the related art, there exists software that takes image data acquired by a digital still camera, for example, and applies thereto position information that indicates the place where the image data was acquired. Processing executed by such software will now be described with reference to FIG. 12.
The digital still camera 90 represents an ordinary still image acquisition device that is used by a typical user, wherein image acquisition is conducted according to user operations. Date and time information (i.e., values for the year, month, day, hour, minute, and second of image acquisition) obtained by an internal clock is then appended to respective sets of image data (i.e., single images) that have been acquired and saved.
The GPS log apparatus 80 is a compact device carried by the user, and is provided with functions to receive and store information with respect to a global positioning system (GPS). Herein, the GPS log apparatus 80 successively saves position information (i.e., latitude and longitude values) as well as date and time information. As a result of being carried by the user, the GPS log apparatus 80 creates a route trace of the user's movement that is stored as GPS log data.
Subsequently, the user transfers and saves image data acquired by means of the digital still camera 90 to a personal computer 1. GPS log data accumulated in the GPS log apparatus 80 is also transferred to the personal computer 1.
Installed on the personal computer 1 is an application program 100 for conducting matching processing (hereinafter referred to as a matching program), which functions as software for taking the image data that was acquired by the digital still camera 90 and appending thereto position information that indicates the location of image acquisition. Matching of the image data and the GPS log is thus conducted as a result of the personal computer 1 executing computational processing on the basis of the matching program 100.
Consider, for example, four sets of image data transferred from the digital still camera 90 to the personal computer 1 that were respectively acquired on Jan. 15, 2008 at 10:35, 10:45, 10:55, and 11:05, and have the respective filenames “DSC0001.JPG”, “DSC0002.JPG”, “DSC0003.JPG”, and “DSC004.JPG”. Information indicating the above date and times of image acquisition is respectively appended to the above image data files in the digital still camera 90 at the time of image acquisition.
In addition, consider the case wherein the user carries and causes the GPS log apparatus 80 to operate between 10:30 and 11:30 on Jan. 15, 2008, for example. In so doing, there comes to exist position information (i.e., latitude and longitude values) corresponding to respective time values between 10:30 and 11:30, such information being stored as GPS log data that is subsequently transferred from the GPS log apparatus 80 to the personal computer 1.
The matching program 100 then matches the date and time information appended to each set of image data with the data and time information in the GPS log data, and thereby determines which position information corresponds to which image data. In other words, the matching program 100 associates position information (i.e., latitude and longitude values) to each set of image data “DSC0001.JPG”, “DSC0002.JPG”, “DSC0003.JPG”, and “DSC0004.JPG” shown in FIG. 12, the association being conducted using the date and time information as a basis therefor. After associating position information in this way, the associated position information is appended within the corresponding image data files and then recorded on a recording medium.
By appending position information to image data files in this way, it becomes possible to subsequently execute processing to show the acquisition location of each set of image data on a map display, for example.